McKinley's opposing candidate, William Jennings Bryan, gave over 600 speeches and traveled many miles all over the United States to campaign, but McKinley outdid this by spending about twice as much money campaigning. While McKinley was at his Canton, Ohio, home conducting his "front-porch campaign", Mark Hanna was out raising millions to help with the campaign.

The concept remains in use in American politics, and was used in June 2008 by then U.S. Senator Jeff Sessions to describe his low-key renomination bid in Alabama's Republican primary, where he received 92 percent of the vote.[2]

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Image of a delegation visiting Republican presidential candidate William McKinley in Canton, OH, October 1896

Throughout the course of the 1896 presidential campaign, McKinley spoke to more than 700,000 supporters in front of his house in Canton.[3] These speeches started as organized meetings between McKinley and delegations from all over the nation. Although it was expensive for the campaign to bring these delegations, all in all, this idea became a good strategy because of the publicity it generated. In addition, due to the fact that McKinley's campaign chose those who would travel as part of the delegation, it was possible to make those who spoke portray McKinley positively.[4]